This pattern comes from Knitty and knitters all over the web have done their takes on it. The concept of felting fascinated me after seeing Rowena make a felted french market bag. I hadn't knit with wool much other than a scarf. I gave this one a try in the hopes of creating a project bag. After knitting it, I was nervous about felting it, but it worked out quite well after two runs on hot in my washer.

I altered the pattern somewhat. First of all, I made the bag 12 inches deep instead of 8 inches. I also made the handles with decreases every 6 rows (instead of 4) with 20 rows (instead of 4) at the end when you are down to 9 stitches. The placement of the handles is also different from the Knitty pattern.

I made the pink/coral french market bag for my grandmother. I decided to make the bag closer to the original pattern dimensions because I didn't want her to be tempted to fill a large bag to capacity and not be able to carry it! The bag is 8 inches deep pre-felting. I did make the handles a little longer than the pattern calls for and I still followed the blog archive to position the handles. It required two washes in hot before it felted to this point.